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"GHADAR PARTY LEHAR" is the history of a stirring Indian revolutionary movement during the First World War, which by an irony of fate has escaped the public attention, although, measured in terms of human sacrifice involved in the form of sentences of death and life imprisonments, it was unrivalled in the post 1857 period. It is the story of a few thousand peasant proprietors of the Central Punjab who left their country for the U. S. A., Canada and the Far East in the opening years of the century in search of better prospects of life for themselves. When they left they were as ignorant of the political problems confronting their country as the millions of their brethern they left behind. The logic of their individual lives in foreign lands, especially the U. S. A. and Canada, rudely shook them to confront the basic fact of the country's slavery and drew them like a magnet to be actors in the heroic drama for the liberation of their country.
The author opens the book with the broad generalization about the character pattern of the kisan of the central districts of the Punjab as it has been shaped during the centuries by the social, economic and political forces that have been operating here. He lucidly makes it clear that here was thc human material which was bold, adventurous and which could do and dare anything when roused sufficiently with almost the gamblers recklessness.
After narrating the causes, which led these people to emigrate to other countries, he lets us have a glimpse into the broad cross-currents prevailing in Canada and the U. S. A. and their effect on the Indians there. He very beautifully and comprehensively traces this effect and the way it aroused in them the deep indignation against the British domination in India ; resulting in the all absorbing passion in them to dedicate themselves to the task of liberating the country through an armed revolt,
This leads the author to the basic formulation af the book that the movement was spontaneous and from below and it was not the creation of a few individuals as it is generally held. The movement worked for the ideal of a secular, democratic republic in India and its impression on the praticipants was so deep that not only
